Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
was its name as far back as Shakespeare’s days. If I plant 
new plants in the garden in autumn I forget about them 
during the winter, and they come as a surprise to me in 
the spring and summer. Pleasant but sometimes in- 
convenient. The pears and the plums are covered with 
pretty white artificial-looking bloom. Boy was eager to 
present me with ready-made bridal bouquets, and had to 
learn that he must not pick off the blossom lest he lack 
fruit later on. The wild violets, purple and white, are 
beginning to show now, and tiny white potentillas, the 
“ fairies’ strawberries,” and blue-flowered comfrey. The 
trout-river is very low now, and the flags are beginning to 
show their green shafts by the bank. Here they call them 
“segs” or “ sag,” and there is a tradition that it was amongst 
such Moses was hidden. Segge or Saeg, “little sword,” is the 
old Anglo-Saxon name for the flag (Iris pseudacorus). It 
is curious there is yet a verb in New England to “ sag,” 
meaning to “ droop down,” which is said of dress skirts, and 
also applied to thatched roofs. It is certainly true that 
many words now obsolete hereabouts, or nearly so, have 
survived beyond the Atlantic. I remember words and 
expressions in Jamaica which I was surprised to meet in 
common parlance here. On the haugh by the water the 
Swallow-wort, or Celandine’s Golden Stars — Earthstars, as 
somebody prettily calls them — are rampant. Eclaire is the 
French name. “ They are the fairies’ gold pieces,” I tell 
Boy. “ What do the fairies do when there are no more 
flowers on the plants ? ” asks the practical youthful Scot. 
An unanswerable question. I wonder there are not more 
songs in praise of Celandine. I only know of Wordsw'orth’s 
pretty praise. Gerarde notes a pretty fancy that it is 
called Swallow- wort because the mother swallow uses it to 
cure any imperfection in her nestlings’ sight. Dr. Schallern 
(1790) has left on record he used Celandine successfully in 
many diseases of the eye. But nowadays its virtues, if 
virtue there be, are forgotten, and it is only remembered 
that its juice is poisonous. It is also said to be called 
Swallow- wort because it blooms when the swallow comes 
28 
